Reno's Affordable Housing Frustration Grows

Reno City Council members are voicing frustration at a lack of progress on the issue of affordable housing. Our contributor Bob Conrad covered their last meeting and has the latest update for our News Director Michelle Billman.

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Advocates for the homeless protested at City Hall in 2015.

Credit ThisisReno.com

Affordable housing was top-of-mind — again — at the Reno City Council meeting on July 26. Rent control, raising standards on weeklies, tiny homes, and decreasing wages all got airplay as serious problems and potential solutions during a lengthy discussion.

Assistant City Manager Bill Thomas outlined potential priorities for dealing with Reno’s growing working-poor populations. He said the council needs to provide focus to staff on which issues to address.

Reno also needs a more affordable housing supply. Seniors, he said, have been particularly hard hit and are unable to compete for housing.

“In order to address this problem, we need direction from you, direction in the region, to focus on some particular part of this problem,” he requested. “Not that all the issues aren’t important … but we feel as staff, that given the resource limitations … if you want us to be successful in our efforts, if we pick a piece … of this problem to focus on we’ll have more success if we can focus on that than if we try to all of the things that need to be done.

“I think it’s just common sense,” he said.

Another concern was improving the safety and sanitation of the weeklies. Weekly motels are not set-up for permanent residence leading to unsanitary living conditions and code violations.

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There’s not enough affordable housing in Washoe County…and more and more residents are getting priced out of owning their own homes. That’s according to a study by the Truckee Meadows Regional Planning Agency. Kim Robinson is the organization’s executive director and Jeremy Smith is GIS coordinator. They talked to our news director Michelle Billman about their findings.